Congressional reform act

[tbburg]

Ran across this. Interesting concept. Too bad the only way to get it passed is to have congress vote on it.
Link to site

The following bill should be introduced in Congress. It would be called the Congressional Reform Act of 2010. It would contain eight provisions, all of which would probably be strongly endorsed by those who drafted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. They believed that serving in Congress is an honor not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, who would serve their terms, then go home and back to work, Remember, Congress currently has the lowest approval of any entity in Government. Now is the time when Americans should join together to reform Congress - the entity that represents us.

1. Term Limits: 12 years only, one of the possible options below.

A. Two Six year Senate terms
B. Six Two year House terms
C. One Six year Senate term and three Two Year House terms

2. No Tenure / No Pension:
A congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.

3. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security:
All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system; Congress participates with the American people.

4. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan just as all Americans.

5. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

6. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

7. Congress must equally abide in all laws they impose on the American people.

8. All contracts with past and present congressmen are void effective one year after passage of the bill .
The American people did not make contracts with congressmen, congressmen made all these contracts for themselves.

 

[5-90]

Seen this before (have it in email from 18 months or so ago...) but let's flesh it out a bit more...

1) May need to be made shorter. Say, ten years in total, any combination (including Presidency?)

2) No tenure, no seniority, no pension. Go into office, work, come out of offive, and you're on your own. I'm tired of pols going into office because they don't have much in the way of saleable skills - government should not be a refuge or sinecure for the incompetent. Also, the salary should be reduced - and make 'em travel commercial! (And not First Class, either.) If they need to get back to Washington in a hurry, POTUS can authorise the use of MILTRANS to get them back - none of this "private jet" crappola.

3) Social Security and MediCare while they're in, and that's what they have to look forward to when they get out. Unless they buy their own. They're not "elite" - they're people just like us.

4) No arument here. See point 3. Congress is not a "career" - it's a job (and a bit of a privilege,) but one should never be able to retire from it.

5) Concur - after their pay is cut by one-third to one-half.

6) Concur.

7) Concur. There may be arguments running about for "Legislative Immunity" (where they can't be held responsible for international criminal reasons - for, say, decaring war or something similar,) but I've been gradually coming of the mind that that's something that needs to change as well. They've got too many shields to hide behind - I'm starting to think they're "diplomats" and not "legislators." Used to be they could be bothered for doing wrong - just like everyone else - as long as it was wrongdoing that wasn't being done in the course of their duties (which is also specious.)

8) All contracts; past, present, and future. This includes lobbying efforts.

Expansion:

9) Paid/contracted lobbysits are no longer allowed within shouting distance of Congresscritters. Lobbies and SIGs didn't send them to Washington - we did. (Yes, this may be counterproductive at first, but I think it would work out for the better. SIGs interested in curtailing liberties are going to tend to have more money than those interested in enhancing and/or maintaining liberty, and the Lobbies can always try to offer Congresscritters a "lucrative retirement package" if they lean a certain way on an issue. Either way, it's "the best government money can buy," and not a government "of, by, and for the people.)

I've got a few other things to add, but they're not crystallising at the moment...

 

[Boatwrench]

The trouble with term limits are the people holding office do not develop long term relationships with their colleagues and then can not build a consensus to accomplish any good. They spend the 1st term learning who is who in the zoo and then by the time they get it figured out someone is termed out.


Anyway, there are already term limits in place...it's called the ballot box.

 

[DrMoab]

Anyway, there are already term limits in place...it's called the ballot box.

Yeah...thats worked great in the past.

Term limits are where it needs to happen. The younger guys can't get stuff figured out because they are always going up against the old timers. Wouldn't happen if there were no old timers.

 

[wolfpackjeeper]

Jon, one problem you may run into with #2 is that for the most part those are not private Jets they cavort around on. They are USAF MILTransport that they have voted themselves authorization over and access to. There was a flap about it a few months ago when they added money to the USAF portion of a spending bill to buy nicer jets.

 

[Crawler]

Yeah...thats worked great in the past.

Term limits are where it needs to happen. The younger guys can't get stuff figured out because they are always going up against the old timers. Wouldn't happen if there were no old timers.

Probably wouldn't happen if there weren't any lobbyists influencing those old timers, either.

Term limits + no lobbyists = effective representation of WE THE PEOPLE ! ! !

 

[tbburg]

Actually, I don't care about term limits. Short term,long term, or no term limit wouldn't make a difference to me. Long term/life time careers are a symptom. The provisions I think are important in the petition are:

2. No Tenure / No Pension:
A congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.

Do away with the congressional pension system. That change right there would do away with the "lifetime" congressman.

3. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security:
All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system; Congress participates with the American people.

A congressman works(?) in congress for 8-10 years and gets the golden parachute for the rest of his life? No. Let em set up a 401 like everyone else. It should be like this for all elected positions. They're volunteering for the job, after all.

7. Congress must equally abide in all laws they impose on the American people.

The first two aim at solving the problems that end up giving us the career pol. This one would solve a lot of the crappy over-burdensome regulations that they pass on to the rest of us.

The only thing I might add is a ban on any felon holding office, and automatic ejection for ethics lapses.(maybe make the first rescind-able, similar to the way a convicted felon may petition a Judge to have his/her civil rights restored after a period of time.)But then I didn't write the petition. :dunno:

 

[joe_peters]

Congressional reform through militia courts, now that is an idea!

 

[JNickel101]

Anyway, there are already term limits in place...it's called the ballot box.

Problem with that is, there's no test to earn your right to vote...even non-US citizens somehow get to vote - I've never figured that one out....

I think in order to get your "voting license" you should have to take a test that is part IQ test, part history test, part current events test - all developed by a bi-partisan agency...

Puts a new spin on "informed voters"....

 

[5-90]

Jon, one problem you may run into with #2 is that for the most part those are not private Jets they cavort around on. They are USAF MILTransport that they have voted themselves authorization over and access to. There was a flap about it a few months ago when they added money to the USAF portion of a spending bill to buy nicer jets.

Perhaps, but "commercial, except when alacrity is required" would be a good idea. MILTRANS should not be used by Congresscritters (I'm inclined to think that not even Space-A travel) unless it's absolutely necessary.

Why? They're not part of the chain of command, and I'm quite sure our military personnel have better things to do.

And, I'm awfully tired of these people acting like they're the power elite - the idea of having a Republic with public selection of representatives was to prevent the formation of a "power elite" - which is why term limits should also be in place.

@Tom - the Halls of Congress have become so damned Byzantine because these people have made them that way - in an effort to preserve their own power. If we were to flush Washington completely, and then make it known that turnover would be regular, I'm inclined to think that they'd stop with all the petty politicking and making things more complex and get into doing something useful instead.

Moreover, I know there's a movement afoot here in CA to get away from the "full-time legislature" deal, and I'd like to see it happen (Google "citizen legislature", and I think you'll find their site.) I wonder if something similar can't be useful on a Federal level anymore? We started with a good system, but it's been coming apart for the last 60-70 years due to greed and powermongering.

 

[RichP]

Isn't there a process for getting a ballot like this on the election ? Nationwide.

 

[JNickel101]

Pretty sure we need quite a few sigs on a petition...

 

[Darky]

Problem with that is, there's no test to earn your right to vote...even non-US citizens somehow get to vote - I've never figured that one out....

I think in order to get your "voting license" you should have to take a test that is part IQ test, part history test, part current events test - all developed by a bi-partisan agency...

Puts a new spin on "informed voters"....

Problem with this is it would be abused almost from the get go. Plus constitutionality. As a result of poll taxes, literacy tests, etc to prohibit newly freed slaves from voting back when blacks were first given the right to vote, an amendment was made listing the only requirements to be citizenship and over the age of 18. I think the no felons part was added later.

 

[JNickel101]

Well what happened to the citizenship part???

 

[Darky]

Well what happened to the citizenship part???

As far as I know, nothing...do you have info regarding non citizens voting?

 

[joe_peters]

As far as I know, nothing...do you have info regarding non citizens voting?

No, I don't have any facts regarding non-citizens voting in U.S. elections.

I do, however, wonder why we have ballots in languages other than English?

Born here, educated here, U.S. citizens don't need ballots in any language other than English.

Born elsewhere, educated elsewhere, move here, LEARN English as a pre-requisite for U.S. citizenship, PASS an English competency test as part of the process of becoming a U.S. citizen, well, what do you know--naturalized U.S. citizens don't need foreign language ballots either.

So, who needs a foreign language ballot? People born elsewhere, educated elsewhere, they haven't learned English and haven't become U.S. citizens.

Just my take on it.

 

[5-90]

No, I don't have any facts regarding non-citizens voting in U.S. elections.

I do, however, wonder why we have ballots in languages other than English?

Born here, educated here, U.S. citizens don't need ballots in any language other than English.

Born elsewhere, educated elsewhere, move here, LEARN English as a pre-requisite for U.S. citizenship, PASS an English competency test as part of the process of becoming a U.S. citizen, well, what do you know--naturalized U.S. citizens don't need foreign language ballots either.

So, who needs a foreign language ballot? People born elsewhere, educated elsewhere, they haven't learned English and haven't become U.S. citizens.

Just my take on it.

I find that part disheartening. Here in CA, it's a state law that election materials are mailed out in English, Spanish, Tagalog, Korean, and Vietnamese - with (I'm fairly certain - need to confirm) several more languages available upon request.

Frankly, I'm with you. If you're eligible to vote, you're either a born citizen here (and therefore reasonably fluent in English) or you've passed the citizenship test (and therefore reasonably fluent in English.) Why do we need to print them in other languages?

DMV is about as bad.

 

[Darky]

No, I don't have any facts regarding non-citizens voting in U.S. elections.

I do, however, wonder why we have ballots in languages other than English?

Born here, educated here, U.S. citizens don't need ballots in any language other than English.

Born elsewhere, educated elsewhere, move here, LEARN English as a pre-requisite for U.S. citizenship, PASS an English competency test as part of the process of becoming a U.S. citizen, well, what do you know--naturalized U.S. citizens don't need foreign language ballots either.

So, who needs a foreign language ballot? People born elsewhere, educated elsewhere, they haven't learned English and haven't become U.S. citizens.

Just my take on it.

Growing up one of my best friends was Korean. His family moved when he was 2. His parents were perfectly capable of speaking English, I could talk to them no problem, but they were still more comfortable speaking Korean. In high school, another very good friend was Indian. His family moved when he was very young as well. They all speak English just fine, his dad's even a professor at the U of AZ, but his mom still is much more comfortable speaking Hindi. English is one of the most difficult languages to learn, you can learn enough to pass the test and still not have an awesome grip on it.

Having other languages available for the people who have moved here and are still more comfortable with their native language doesn't say non-citizens are voting.

 

[RichP]

Growing up one of my best friends was Korean. His family moved when he was 2. His parents were perfectly capable of speaking English, I could talk to them no problem, but they were still more comfortable speaking Korean. In high school, another very good friend was Indian. His family moved when he was very young as well. They all speak English just fine, his dad's even a professor at the U of AZ, but his mom still is much more comfortable speaking Hindi. English is one of the most difficult languages to learn, you can learn enough to pass the test and still not have an awesome grip on it.

Having other languages available for the people who have moved here and are still more comfortable with their native language doesn't say non-citizens are voting.

Having worked with many indian green card holders, their first language was the kings english with british accent and all. As far as tagalog, many Philippine poeple enlisted in the navy and spent careers there, becoming citizens enroute over 20 or 30 years. Cooks, Yeoman, Stewards, Shopkeepers, etc were more or less run by them in the surface navy.

 

[5-90]

Growing up one of my best friends was Korean. His family moved when he was 2. His parents were perfectly capable of speaking English, I could talk to them no problem, but they were still more comfortable speaking Korean. In high school, another very good friend was Indian. His family moved when he was very young as well. They all speak English just fine, his dad's even a professor at the U of AZ, but his mom still is much more comfortable speaking Hindi. English is one of the most difficult languages to learn, you can learn enough to pass the test and still not have an awesome grip on it.

Having other languages available for the people who have moved here and are still more comfortable with their native language doesn't say non-citizens are voting.

Perhaps, but it just sets a bad precedent. Also (at least I'm inclined to think,) it's just another "slippery slope" we don't need - we've had altogether too many either started or well in progress over the last thirty years...